Second Chances
by AnAliasButSomeoneTookThatName
Summary: Second chances; Everybody wants one, but nobody ever earns one. Rated T, just as a precaution.
1. Chapter 1

Nicholas Wilde was going to die.

His partner, as much as she hoped, knew it.

He knew it.

Everyone in the dirty room, in the unfinished constructionsite, knew it.

He wasn't going to die from some incurable disease, nor was he going to die from old age, or a heart attack, _or something normal like that._

Nope, a he was going to die from a thug, a wolf, who had his paws on the vulpine's small neck, violently choking him to a breathless sleep.

But before the whole "breathless-sleep" part, time seemed to slow for the fox, and he seemed to see every small detail on everything in the room. Although it wasn't very hard, considering how damn small the room was.

He could see the angry expressions of the hired-thugs faces, and broken bottles littered around the concrete floor.

He could see the sun coming through the tips of the trees outside, that were some random species, probably grown at least 20 years ago.

He could see his sweat on his muzzle, which had-unsurprisingly-accumulated in the past hour, which had been quite eventful.

 _So this is it. This is how the adventures of old Nick end._ He thought to himself, his vision becoming darker by the second. _Huh, who would've guessed that you can see the blurriest things so clearly in your last moments?_

He kept on thinking, not even bothering to struggle in the wolf's iron chokehold.

But, alas, all good things must come to an end, and his rather bleak final thoughts were cut short by Judy, his partner's, face.

Her lips were moving, probably pleading for the thugs not to kill him. Of course, her pleads fell on deaf ears. He could seethe mix of fear, anger, and panic in her eyes. He could see her small arms and legs struggling to break away from another

thug, aFox's, hold (isn't that ironic?).

He stared into her purple eyes, eventually becoming the only thing in his vision other than inky black. She stared into his now-dull, emerald green eyes.

And the last thing he'd ever remember seeing would be those beautiful purple eyes.

 **Author's Note:Holy Jesus, that was an interesting first chapter. In all seriousness, I've written this all in about an hour, in a hotel bed, at 1 AM because I've had this idea floating around forever.**

 **There'll probably be a second chapter, because seriously, I'm a crappy writer, not an asshole.**

 **Little Edit: Holy shit, this first chapter looked like a mess, hopefully it doesn't now.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Holy Jesus, I've gotten like 2 responses to chapter one, so I've decided to just make another one. Now comes the part of the story which won't come out very well;**

 **Characters actually interacting with each other. (Dun dun dun)**

Black.

That was all Nick could see, apart from his now undamaged body, it was everywhere.

Inky, depthless black.

It was like he was in space, but without all the stars he remembered. Which weren't actually many, by the way. The entire "growing up in the city" thing had, for the most part, rendered just staring into the sky at night a final step if he had ever wantedto  
see more than just the brightest stars.

He remembered back to his childhood. He was about 7 years old. Life was still fairly good. His father had left them at that point, but that wouldn't stop him and his mother.

* * *

"Nicky, we're going somewhere special today!" His mother told him.

"Where, mommy?" He would ask.

"It's a surprise, honey!" She'd exclaim, like it was the most normal thing in the world. She liked surprising him at this age.

And so the two of them went to the big station, which was were most mammals would enter and exit the city. This perplexed him. No museums, or places he seemed he'd like were near the station, so why would they be going directly to it?

"Mommy, where are we going?" He'd ask again.

His mother didn't answer. Instead, she leaded him on to a train.

"Nicholas, you've seen the stars, right?" She asked him as the train began moving, a smile on her face.

"Uhh, yes?" He was confused, and, to be honest, kind of nervous.

"Have you seen them clearly, Nicholas?" She asked him. Her smile was gone, but she had happiness in her eyes.

"Uhh," he was very confused at this point. Yes, he had seen the stars, but he knew there was more to them outside of the city. Children at school who were from outside of the city had talked about it.

"What am I talking about," she said, although more to herself than him. "You know what mammals say about the stars in the country, right?"

"That you can see all of them?" He was mostly guessing at this point.

"Yes, Nicky. Can you guess what we're going to see?" She had seemed to realize that he knew what she was doing.

"The stars?"

"Yes, Nicky. You've never gotten to see them, and they won't always be around forever."

They didn't talk until they were in some small town outside of the city. Some cheesy name, like Bunny Burrow, or something like that.

"Do you know how all of these stars got here, Nick?"

Nick, of course, didn't know a single thing about stars, and his response mirrored that.

"Umm, uh, no?"

"Well Nicholas, when a mammal dies, they become one of the stars up there. I want you to know that Nicholas, that whenever you need help, everyone is in the stars." She wasn't smiling, nor did she have happiness in her eyes. She seemed completely serious.

"Does that mean I'll go up there, too?" Nick asked, curiosity twinkling in his eyes.

"If you're a good mammal in life, you will." His mother brought him in to a hug.

Eventually, he would learn that the stars _weren't_ dead people, and that they are all the same. He would also eventually, more or less, stop believing in an afterlife.

* * *

Out of all his reminiscing about his past, one thought barged it's way into the front of his mind;

 _If I'm dead, and dead means your brain ceases to function, how can I still think?_

And, almost if on cue, a blinding light flashed into his face.

 **Alias's note: Jesus, this chapter seemed a little bit longer, and I posted it before it was finished.**

 **God I hope nobody read the chapter before I finished it, because it'd be confusing as fuck.**

 **Well, anyways, I'm an asshole when it comes to cliffhangers, and I've got to do a little bit of character work to do.**

 **Happy speculating!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Well, I have no comments to make this chapter, but at this point I'll just toy with you guys.**

**Oh yea, and the feeling I got when I realize nobody really knows what'll happen in the story was** _ **amazing.**_ **I feel like a damn god.**

 **Anyways, I hope you enjoy!**

Judy ran.

She ran as fast as she'd ran since the police academy, and that had been a year ago.

Her padless paws hit broken glass and debris from years of neglect, cuts and bits of glass appearing.

She stopped when she reached who she was looking for.

Nick.

He was laying face-down on the cold concrete floor. He was still.

She flipped him over, and checked him over. Aside from minor brusises and cuts, the one defining feature that stuck out like a purple carrot was that his neck had beenhorribly bruised and had been clearly squeezed to the point where no air could

come through. His body was incredibly cold, and she could see, even through all of his thick red fur, that his skin was a deathly pale.

She shook his clearly lifeless body, hugging him tightly. She cried his name out, just trying to bring him back, to see his eyes with life in them, to hear his voice again, even if if was just three words.

All of the hired-thugs were, luckily, quiet, and stood back while she spent a moment with his body. The cut their silence when Judy tried to preform CPR.

"No, you can't do that, we don't want you bringing him back to life, and its time to get rid of you, too." he said it like it was just a part of his job.

Oh wait. It _was_ part of his job.

The wolf pried Judy off of Nick, while she desperately tried to hold him, just for another second.

"Sweet Joseph, the death grip she had on that fox!" The wolf exclaimed toanother thug, an otter.

Judy kept quiet, and she knew what was going to happen. The thugs would beat her up, and when she was close to death, they'd probably choke her like they choked Nick.

She desperately struggled to break out of the wolf's grasp as he brought her into a smaller, dirtier room.

 **Alias's note: What a chapter! Well, honestly it was kind of short, but I've got to have a little bit of filler to make the story work.**

 **Don't worry, the next chapter will actually be interesting.**

 **And longer than the 20 words this chapter was.**

 **Anyways, Alias out!**


	4. Chapter 4

**ALRIGHT BOYS, THIS IS THE PART WHERE THIS STORY GOES FROM 0-60 IN A SECOND.**

 **LETS DO THIS**

Nick was in an office.

He didn't know how, but when the blinding light faded, he found himself on the floor of a well furnished, large, and cold office. It was, at least, 3 times larger than Chief Bogo's office, and about 3/4 the size of the bullpen where they'd get their assignments.

He looked around the room. It was well lit, but it didn't seem to have any lights built into the ceiling, and instead seemed to be entirely lit by lamps, like something out of a movie set in the 1920s.

He walked around the room, looking for clues to tell where he was.

There were no windows, so looking outside wouldn't work.

All of the drawers and cabinets seemed to be locked, so looking through documents wouldn't do.

There were no calendars to indicate the date, so he couldn't even tell what day it was.

Everything in the room seemed to be, oddly enough, made for foxes.

The lamps, which provided lighting, appeared to be made for foxes.

The large desk, which was situated close to one of the walls, was definitely made for foxes.

Nick was uncertain, and to be honest, rather nervous, about where he could be. He knew there were fox crime bosses, and fox gang leaders, but no foxes had he heard of could have such a large officewithout being feared for reasons of the illegalkind.

But, than again, times were changing, and since he never really was caught up in the news, it would have made sense for him to miss something like this.

He continued to think about where he was and when- _if_ \- anybody came, who would they be, until he noticed something that could answer all of his questions.

A door, built out of dark wood, sat diagonal to the desk.

 _A door!_ He thought. _Why haven't I seen this before?_

He approached the door, cautious, just in case anyone were to come through.

He examined the door, and found a clue that baffled him as much as it surprised him;

A metal pentagram was pressed into the top half of the door. It was intricate, and seemed to have curved lines sticking out of it, like a 6 year old's drawing of the sun.

 _Ha,_ he thought, smiling, _all it needs is a pair of sunglasses, and it'll look like how I drew it in 1st grade!_

He reached for the doorknob, which was made out of brass, a smile of hope still on his face.

A smile that was instantly wiped off his face as soon as he realized the door was locked, or at least wouldn't budge.

He pushed the door, and it seemed to move ever-so-slightly. His smile returned. He pushed the door harder, and it seemed to move again, slightly more this time. He pushed the door even harder this time, and it moved. He kept on pushing, and it seemed  
hewas getting _so_ close to it finally pushing open when, like an explosion in a daisy field;

"I know you've been here a while, but are you trying to leave already?"

Nick, startled, turned and jumped back, pinning himself to the door.

A red fox was leaning on the desk, arms crossed with an annoyed expression on his face. He was taller than Nick, even while leaning.

He had a crimson red vest on, over a black dress shirt, with black pants on as well.

Nick stared at the other fox, one feature becoming the only one he could focus on;

His eyes.

They were an evil red, percing, and glowing, like something out of a horror movie.

He had a necklace on, too. It appeared to be the same pentagram the door had stamped on.

"Well, are you going to say something?"

This seemed snap Nick out of his stare, and he moved himself away from the door, standing up. He took a moment to think of a question until he came up with his best question, at least in thatmoment.

"Who are you?" He asked, a small amount of fear laced in his voice. He mentally cursed himself for sounding scared.

The other fox kept on looking at Nick, arms still crossed and body still leaning back. Nick stared back at him, confused, and a little bit scared. Had he heard him right?

Slowly, a smile grew on the other fox's face. His expressions softened and he uncrossed his arms sticking them in his pockets, only his thumbs sticking out.

"What a fine question to ask, 'who am I?' Good way to get information." The fox mused.

So he _had_ heard him correctly.

"Well, I'll tell you if you tell me who you are." He offered, the smile still on his face.

 _What?_ Nick thought, _he brought me here, he should know me, right?_

He had to ask.

"I'd think you'd know me, considering you brought me here," he paused. "You did bring me here, right?"

Like a light switch, the other fox's smile vanished, his brow furrowing in a mixture of anger and annoyance. His arms moved to straight to his sides. He stood straight now, appearing to be at least a half a foot taller than Nick. His eyes glowed.

And justwhen Nick thought nothing could getworse, the fox started walking towards Nick, _no, running? No, its just speed walking._

Nick gathered up courage, and stood straight while the other fox walked towards him menacingly.

As the other fox got closer, Nick's breaths quickened slightly. He hoped the fox wouldn't notice. The fox moved to the point where there bodies almost touched, and Nick was forcing himself to breath slowly.

Then, again surprising the hell out of Nick, the other fox smiled again, and his arms moved from their straight positions back into his pockets.

"Well aren't you just full of-" the other fox stopped suddenly, thinking. "Excellent questions." He seemed to choke out the 'excellent', as if he wanted to say something else.

"And yes, I did bring you here, so I do know who you are, but do you know who you are?" He asked.

"Yes, I'm-" Nick took a second to rememberwho he was.

His mind blanked.

He began to remember what happened, and he began to panic, his eyes widening, when suddenly, everything seemed to come back. He sighed in relief.

"I'm Nicholas Wilde, an officer in the ZPD." The words seemed to roll off of his tongue.

The other fox scoffed when he said he was part of the ZPD. "Well, you're not gonna be part of the ZPD for much longer." He stated.

"What do you mean?" Nick asked, his head slightly tilting.

The other fox began to looked annoyed again.

"Have you really not noticed yet? The pentagram, my eyes, that fact that there's nodamn windows in this room?" his annoyed expression had returned.

Nick thought to himself, confused to what he meant, _what could he mean?_

 _No windows?_ It would make sense. If he was being held hostage, _no windows to jump from._

 _Glowing, crimson red eyes?_ Scary, but the color was easily attainable by using colored contacts, _but hey, you gotta scare someone somehow. Not sure about the glowing part, though._

 _Pentagram?_ That _didn't_ make any sense to have. Nick knew there was only one known cult that used pentagrams; Satanists. But as far as Nick knew, _those cultsdied out years ago._

He remembered being choked to death, but he could have been revived.

He thought he may be in the afterlife, but he shook those thoughts away. _Those are just fairytales_ he thought to himself, but deep down, he still wasn't sure.

He thought about everything closely. Him dying. He could have been revived, but he was sure nobody else had been around the construction site, at the thugs made it incredibly clear that they had been paid to _kill_ the two of them.

But even if he had been revived, what was with the large office? What was with the pentagrams? He didn't want to believe it, but it was the only thought in his mind.

Meanwhile, the other fox had stepped away from Nick, and now had a pleased smirkon his face.

"You've figured it out, right?" He asked

Nick nodded, only the thought in his mind.

"Well then Nicholas Wilde, welcome to the place you call," he paused, his smirkonlygrowing larger. "Hell."

 **Alias's Notes: Well, That was the surprise of the century.**

 **I don't really have much to say.**

 **Although I this is the first chapter I've wrote (or more or less edited) on my PC, and god, I just realized how short these chapters are compared to on mobile.**

 **idgaf tho, I'm having fun.**

 **Anyways, Alias out!**

 **Edit: Well, I made some stuff sound better.**

 **P.S: I'm soooo damn exited forall of you guys to see the next few chapters! Because it's about to get INTERESTING!**


	5. Chapter 5

**No comment. Again, next chapter'll be more interesting.**

 **And (hopefully) a hell of a lot longer.**

Judy Hopps was going to die.

She knew it.

All of the hired thugs in the room knew.

Her untimely death appeared to begin when the wolf, who had brought her into the small room, violently threw her against one of the walls. She hit the wall hard, legs first, and felt an incredible pain in her right leg.

It didn't need much explaining to tell that her leg had been snapped, looking at the torn skin and the blood pouring out

She cried out in pain, but it didn't stop what happened next.

Another thug, an otter, walked over to her, and proceeded to punch her in the stomach, causing more pain.

 _So this is it_ , she thought, sadly, after the otter stopped punching her in the stomach, of course. _No kits, no promotion, no finally telling Nick..._

At this point, she was nearing death. She cried, realizing Nick would never know. Her body was beaten and battered, but nothing was worse than holding Nick's lifeless body, knowing that he'd never know the truth.

Of course, there was the possibility of an afterlife, where she could see Nick again, be with him for all eternity. But she didn't think about this, too busy thinking about Nick.

Then, like Nick, the wolf came up and grabbed her throat with one hand, picking her up like a ragdoll.

Her body wouldn't let her fight back fully- she barely raised her arms toward the wolf's.

The wolf squeezed his hand, and almost immediately, her vision darkened, the inky blackness inviting itself into the corners of her eyes. Her breaths grew more and more strained by the second. She became weaker, and her eyes began to close, and she only  
had one thought on her mind;

Nick.

 **Alias's Notes: What an original chapter idea. Totally not a reskin of chapter 1. 100%.**

 **Anyways, Alias out!**

 **Little edit: Holy crap, I just realized this chapter was the shortest I've written? Sorry I guess, but considering chapter 4 was 3 times larger, I'm going to give myself a free pass.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Alright boys, this chapter's is gonna be a Wilde ride.**

 **Pun intended.**

Nick, unsurprisingly, was shocked.

Even in his current state of 'I've just been convinced I'm in a place I've convinced myself doesn't exist', he was still in a state of complete shock.

He was dead, he was dead at a young age, and he was in hell of all places!

He didn't understand why he was in hell, as far as he could tell, he'd been a pretty good person.

Sort of.

He'd ruined lives with his hustling, but he'd never ended any! He knew that. He'd never killed anybody at all, even when he worked for Mr. Big, nor had he in his 7 months of police work.

So,he had to know. Had he killed anyone, and forgotten? _No, I'd remember killing someone, even accidentally._ Was hustling bad enough to get an invitation to hell? _I wasn't that bad, but yea, it could happen._ Was heaven really uptight about  
/who you are? _Again, maybe, but isn't heaven about loving everyone, and forgiving? Then again, nobody's really lived to tell what their standards are._

"At this point I'm guessing you're wondering how you ended up in hell of all places?" The other fox asked, taking Nick out of his thoughts. He had stepped backwards, giving Nick space.

"Err, yes?" Nick answered, still slightly in shock.

The fox's smile grew larger, clearly entertained with Nick's state of shock. "First off, you aren't in hell because you were bad." He explained.

Nick sighed in relief.

"Second," the fox continued, his smile shrinking, slightly. "You can call me Damien. Good name, no?"

 _It is a pretty good name,_ Nick thought. "Yea, I guess it is pretty good."

Then, in the time Nick had to think, his mind realized something; _This is fucking crazy, he thought. I'm in hell? Why did I ever believethat?_

"Wait. I'm sorry, 'Damien', but I'm not so stupid as to think I'm in hell of all places!" He blurted out.

The other fox- Damien's expression became angered, just as Nick expected. But, in a moment of surprise to Nick, he started walking back towards his desk. Nick took advantage of this, and began towards the door to open it.

When he reached the door, he looked back one final time, to make sure he wasn't about to get a occiput full of paw, and what he saw scared the living hell out of him.

An almost carbon copy of him was standing mere feet away from him, with a smug expression not very far off his signature smile he usually wore.

He was wearing a police uniform, with a badge to top it off that was a copy of his own.

Suffice to say, if you compared the two, there would be no differences at all.

The real Nick once again pinned himself to the door, eyes wide with surprise. He opened his muzzle as if to speak, but nothing came out.

"Is this enough proof?" The not-so Nick asked, his head tilted.

"W-who are you?" The real Nick blurted out, his surprise turning into minor fear.

"I'm Damien, can't you see? Just look at my eyes." The not-so-Nick-but-maybe-Damien answered, as if he was a teacher that was telling a student an obvious answer.

And so, Nick looked into his carbon copy's eyes, and to his horror, the green eyes Nick himself had only seen in photos slowing became red, until they mirrored the eyes he'd seen on Damien.

 _Why am I always so wrong about everything?_ He thought. _First about the lead, now about the fact that this fox is a fucking demon? Joseph's sake, why can't my life just be normal!?_

"So, do you believe me now?" The Damien-but-in-a-Nick-casing said.

"I really don't have choice, do I?" Nick asked.

Damien-Nick shook his head.

"Alright then. So you're literally a demon, and I'm in hell for some reason?" Nick guessed.

"Bingo, expect for that last part which brings me to my next part. But first, let me just change back to myself." Damien-Nick explained.

And, in a flash of light, he looked just like the Damien Nick remembered from minutes earlier.

"Come to my desk, let's talk." Damien's voice was back now, and he didn't sound like Nick anymore, which didcalm Nickdown,slightly.

And the two sat at the desk, Damien sitting on the business end, and Nick sitting on the side closer to the door. Damien brought out some papers, which all had the same pentagram from earlier, albeit with a simpler design.

He fiddled with his papers, moving them about, taking some out and putting some forward. It appeared that this was his personal desk, and that he didn't keep it too well organized.

Nick waited in the faux leather seat, quiet. He wondered what the 'next part' was.

"Ok, ok, that should be it" Damien murmured to himself as he tookout a simple wooden box. It was small, and Nick's hustling instincts told him thatit was just a prop to make him wonder what was inside, to distract him from what was really

going on.

"So, Nicholas," Damien began, putting his hands on the desk. "I want to give you," he pointed to Nick. "a second chance."

* * *

Judy was dying.

And God, was she dying fast.

But, as a sudden surprise, but unbeknownst to the rabbit, one of the burner phones the hired thugs had went off.

"Wait, stop choking her." One of them said. To Judy, it sounded like the fox.

"Why? The dude wanted us to kill em', and she's almost gone." Another thug said. Judy's eyes were still shut, and she couldn't see them too, but she assumed it was the wolf.

"He just called. Said to leave her here,guess to let her die or somethin'. I say we just listen to him."

Everyone else agreed, and the wolf dropped Judy onto the concrete floor.

Judy felt like she could barely move, and opened her eyes. The door to the hallway was open, but the door to the room Nick died in was shut.

She found her tranq-gun to her right, still loaded. They must had left it there for some reason. She had no idea what to do.

Nick was dead, completely gone. She know she couldn't walk, nor could she walk. She know she couldn't call for help, and she knew nobody knew where her and Nick went.

So, she cried.

Just cried.

She didn't have much else to do. The fact that Nick was dead, mixed with everything else she realized, broke her. She knew she'd bleed out eventually, and that she'd die a painful death, probably more painful than right then.

So she cried.

 **Alias's notes: Another long chapter.**

 **Great.**

 **Also, this marks the first time I've used both Nick and Judy's POV's in one chapter, and I think I'm gonna use it more.**

 **Anyways, Alias out!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Well, it looks like these chapters are getting a little bit longer.**

 ****

 **I hope you guys don't get** _ **hopping**_ **mad!**

 **It was dubsaloon's idea.**

Nick was in an odd situation.

He was in hell, with a demon, who was making him an offer to bring him back to life.

Very odd.

"You want to bring me back?" Nick asked, eyes wide with surprise.

Damien brought his hands up from the desk,"Yep. That's the jist of it." He told him, smiling.

Nick was just about as confused as he was surprised."But- why? Why me? Why not someone else?" He queried, still confused as to why he had chosen him of all people.

"Well, first, eternity gets boring," Damien explained,"and second, I feel like you got life ripped away from you. It might be the whole 'god's plan for you' but that's always so boring, so I've decided to give you the chance at getting back to your own life." His smile had faded, a serious, businessman-like look spreading across his face.

 _That does make sense,_ Nick thought, contemplating wether to press on with the questions or to just take the deal.

"What's the catch?" Nick questioned.

Damien must have expected this, and said like he'd practiced it a million times, "The mammal who ordered your death must be brought to justice in one week."

"Or?"

"You get to stay up there," Damien paused. "But you stay in whatever form I you go back up in."

 _So that's the catch_ , Nick thought. _He brings me up as acompletely different mammal to make everything difficult. I might as well take my chances. Either way, I'dstill be back on earth._  
 _  
_  
 _"_ I'm not going to be some hideous monster, right?" Nick enquired.

"No, you won't be that bad. You won't be scaring everyone around you." Damien answered, bringing the small box towards himself.

"So,do we have a deal?" He questioned.

"I guess we do" Nick answered. He raised his hand to shake, but Damien shook his head.

"No," he said, opening the box. He brought out a purple-colored flower, similar to a Night Howler, but with paler petals. "All you have to do is eat one of these and you'll be back." Damien explained, smiling. He handed Nick a pawfulof petals.

Nick held the petals in his paws, thinking. _These petals have the power to make me into... Something. And if I mess up, I'll be stuck like that forever, and Judy probably won't recognize me and-_

"Are you just going to stare, or are you going to eat the flower?" Damien interrupted, ripping Nick out of his thoughts.

Nick brought the petals towards his maw. _How am I going to eat these? Just put them in my mouth and chew?_ He thought. He put the petals into his mouth, and chewed.

Almost instantly his mind became clouded, and his vision darkened, _I guess that iswhat I needed to do._ He swallowed the flowers and started getting a feeling of intense tiredness.

Damien was smiling broadly."And since you just ate the flowers, just because I said you won't be scaring everyone didn't mean you won't scare your partner! Good luck!" He laughed.

Nick was too weak to spit the flowers, nor even speak, and even through his clouded mind, and the world faded away from him, he had one thought on his mind;

 _Judy_.

 **Alias's notes: You know, you guys are really lucky I have well too much time on my hands.**

 ****

 **And to think I started this entire story at 2 AM in a hotel bed. In fact, I'm writing this at the exact hotel I wrote chapter 1.**

 ****

 **Honestly, the circumstances of chapter 1 were pretty normal for me.**

 ****

 **Anyways, Alias out!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Ugh, it's 11:45 and I've been on flights for the past 10 hours.**

 **On the plus side, I'm back at HQ.**

Judy had stopped crying.

Albeit not by her own actions. She had gotten her mind together, managed to get past the mental image of Nick's lifeless body, and at this point, was in the hallway outside of the room she'd nearly died in.

It'd been painful, but the rabbit hadmanaged to drag herself and her tranq-gun out of the small, dirty roomand into a equally dirty hallway.

Hey, it's a start.

She has planned to crawl out of the room, down however many floors she was up (she had guessed around 5), and (hopefully) manage to get help.

But, she had failed to realize, at least until she reached the hallway,one major flaw in her plan;

Stamina, or at this point, the lack of it.

Rabbits like her-scratch that, _especially_ her, usally had damn-near unlimited energy. But with abadly beaten body, and her snapped leg, her body was definitely not in a state to just walkout of the building.

She had adrenaline in her system, but almost all of it had been used up just keeping her eyes open in the minutesafter the thugs left.

So she took a break. She leaned up against a wall and took a moment to _just breathe._

And after a few minutes, she dragged herself through the hallway towards the stairwell.

She sat on the top step, which was large, which probably meant that it was for larger mammals. Her body wanted to, at that point, just sleep, but Judy knew what that meant; it wanted to die.

It made sense. She'd been bleeding rather heavily for a few minutes (at least untilshe'd wrapped her leg in a part of her uniform), not to mention that she'd been punched in the stomach multipletimes, and since her fragile body wasn't exactly  
built for taking hits, it would be a while for her to fully regain her stamia.

But she soldiered on,determined to survive and make it out. Judy pulledherself down the large stairs, making sure to land on her good leg first. It took a while, but eventually she did make it to the bottom of the stairwell, to _oh so happily_ find  
that the other stairwell was on the other side of the floor.

 _This is gonna take a while._

But instead of heading the full distance of the floor to the next stairway, she headed in to one of the larger rooms, which she presumed was going to be a conference room, or perhaps a large office.

She went to one of the unfinished windows, and looked outside at the empty lot she'd entered earlier.

Her and Nick's police cruiser wasn't there, norwere thecars of the thugs from earlier. There weren't many houses nearby, but she knew she _hopefully_ get help at one of them.

She considered calling out for help, but she knew nobody would hear her from the floor shewas at (which actually turned out to be the 5th), and she'd be wasting her breath on calling.

She kept on thinking, sitting on the window ledge, when a sound ripped her from her thought. It was paws on the concrete, and they seemed awfully quiet, almost _deliberately_ quiet.

She hopped down from the window's ledge. Her mind told her that it was the thugs, that they'd seen her, that they were coming to finish the job. She moved towards adoor to what seemed like, more or less a closet.

The paws grew louder,indicating they had reachedher floor.

Judy began to panic. She pulled her self upwards, reaching for the door's handle. _Of all of the rooms to have a door, this doorhad to be broken!_ She thought as the door unfortunately revealed it self to be broken, or at least  
needing some pushing to open it.

She looked back at the doorway to make sure nobody had entered. It was shrouded in darkness, oddly enough, but it was evening, and it was the winter, so the sun seemed always be in a rush to go down.

She kept on pushing the door, using all of her strength to open it, and it barley budged. But this was enough for the rabbit, and she kept pushing.

She could hear the pawsteps growing even louder, appearing to now be _outside_ of the room. She pushed even harder now, using every ounce of energy she had to get the damn door open.

Judy heard a step echothroughout the empty room, and she turned around, realizing her fate.

She couldn't actually see what was there, but she knew it couldn't be good. She could, however, hear. She heard damn-near savage-levels of snarling.

This, somehow, caused her to remember the tranq-gun she'd been carrying. "Stay back!" She said, pointing the gun at the source of the snarling. She didn't even know _what_ was snarlingat her, but it sounded angry, and dangerous.

The snarling moved forward some steps, revealing the outline of the muzzle from a fox.

Judy pulled the gun away slightly, questioning who this fox actually was. She didn't know any foxesother than Nick and Gideon, but hope had filled her then emotionally-empty body rather well.

"N-Nick?" At this point, she'd pushed the image of Nick's dead body out of her head, and she was hoping it could have been Nick, even if he was a savage beast. She just wanted to see him again, to hear his voice, to be able to tell him that she-

She was cut off when two red vertical slitsappeared where a fox's eyes usally were, her emotions changingfrom hope to fear inmilliseconds. She raised her tranq-gun red slits glowed evilly, and the snarling only grew louder.

And as a massive surprise to her, she heard a whimper,the two vertical slits disappeared, and the sound of paws stepping away filled the room.

Judy lowered her tranq-gun. _Did I just imagine that?_ She placed the gun next to her. She recounted her breaths, calming herself down. I must have just imagined that, I should get more sleep.

Then, the fox, now appearing to be a red fox, looking similar to Nick, flew through the doorway. Judy tried to raise her gun, but as she did, the fox, now clearly savage, slapped the gun out of her paws, hitting it towards a far-off corner.

Judy pushed herself backwards, ignoring the immensepain it caused her. She slammed against the hard wall, checking left and right for any means of escape. She noted the fact that one of her legs was completely useless and that she was definitely not up  
to her full potential.

Suffice to say, she had no means of escape, and she was probably going to die.

The fox stalked towards her, it's red eyes glowing even brighter than before. It snarled angrily, gainingdistance on itsprey. Judy pushed herself harder onto the wall.

Judyturned her head away and shut her eyes, hoping to miss the fox's pounce onto her neck. She was expecting it, to feel the cold claws on her chest, holding her down, the dread of feeling those _oh_ _so sharp teeth_ on her neck,  
and the immense pain of having her jugular vein rippedout violently.

She felt gentle paws on her body, and teeth on her the back of her neck, but no jugular vein was ripped out, and no immense pain seemed to come. Instead, she felt the teeth on the back of her neck pick her up, and she opened her eyes to find _who but_ theexact  
fox who was snarling at her wasliterally picking her up by the scruff of her neck, and padding on all fours out of the doorway.

She struggled in the fox's bite, but she did feel like she was getting somewhere, and as the fox was heading down the 3rd floor stairs, she managed to get out of the fox's bite. She was just about to hit the floor when, in a quick motion, the fox pushed  
her down with both paws and snarled at her out of what appeared to be rage.

Judy's eyes were wide. She thought before the fox looked like he was going to eat her, now he _really_ looked like he was going to eat her. Judy tried to stop him as he flipped her over, but she was just too tired and too weak to stop him.

This time, he bit down on the scruff of her neck even harder, illiciting a cry from instantly the fox let go, and oddly enough, sniffed her neck, and not even seconds later, he bit on her neck again, albeit lighter, and picked her up again.

The sniffing was enough for Judy to tell that the fox wasn't, at least at that time, trying to eat her.

The walk down the building was quiet, with the occasional huff from the fox, and the occasional pained breath from Judy, which usally caused the fox to stop and check her over.

And finally, after what had felt like an eternity, she reached the front door she and Nick had entered from hours before.

But instead of bringing her outside, the fox kept her inside, and placed her down on the floor.

Judy tried to drag herself outside, but stopped when she felt a paw on her back. She turned around to find the fox, who had seemed to want to eat her, was giving her puppy dog eyes, pursed lip and all.

Even with those cold, evil slits of eyes, she really could not resist just to stay for a minute. _It is cold outside,_ she thought, dragging herself towards the fox. _And it wouldn't hurt to catch my breath, either._

And as she sat there with the fox, she took the time to look at the fox in detail.

He was wearing blackshorts and a pale blue t-shirt. _A lot better than Nick,_ she thought.

She was beginning to look at his actions, which reminded her of Nick,when sirens began to fill the air. The fox seemed to notice this too, it's ears perking up. Judy looked at thefox, and the fox looked back at her, looks of uncertainty on their faces.

The fox, like earlier, gentlypicked Judy up by the scruff of her neck. She didn't mind it at this point, and let her body go limp. The fox didn't seem to notice this, and began to pad towards the empty doorway.

As she went through the doorway, she could hear the confused calls from ZPD officers.

"What the hell? What's that fox doing?"

"Holy shit, he's savage, look at his eyes!"

"Holy fuck!"

"I thought everyone got a vaccine for that!"

Judy remained limp. She didn't think they'd say what the officers yelled next.

"He's biting Officer Hopps!"

Judy began to open her eyes.

"Shoot him!"

Judy's eyes shot open in surprise. _Did they really think he killed me?_

She pushed herself out of the fox's bite, the fox opening its maw to let her out.

"Wait! It's okay, he didn't eat me! He's fine!" The rabbit tried to explain, but to no avail.

"What about your leg then?"

A chorus of safeties being undone filled the air.

The fox began to walkbackwards.

Judy began to sweat.

"Just don't shoot! I canexplain." She pleaded.

"I'm sorry Hopps, he's savage, we'll have to." One of the Officers, a brown wolf,informed her. She had become a bit of a legend in the ZPD, and her name was well known in most precincts. This was a good example.

Almost instantly after that,the wolf pointed his tranq-gun at the fox. The fox bolted back into the building, narrowly missing a dart flying in his direction.

There were officers by her side instantly, checking her over. They asked her questions, but she wasn't listening. She wanted to know who that fox was, and one question that managed to baffle her the most;

 _If he was savage, why didn't he kill me?_

 **Alias's notes:I'm so done right now.**

 **It's like 1 AM and I have school in 6 hours.**

 **I'll fix this chapter later.**

 **Anyways, Alias out!**

 **Edit: I don't know why, but for some reason my words seem to get conjoined together.**


	9. Chapter 9

As Nick's eyes rolled back into his head, and his eyelids seemed to slam shut, they, confusingly enough, seemed to simultaneously fling themselves open, and his eyes rolled back into a normal state.

He looked around. He seemed to be in a forest, with snow covering the ground around him. He was laying in the snow on his side. He felt the cold snow wetting his clothes, which, oddly enough were a t-shirt and black shorts.

He pondered where exactly the clothes had come from, because he knew he didn't own any pale clothes, let alone _black_ shorts of all things, and he definitely had not put them on that morning.

That jogged his memory, and caused him to wonder if it had actually happened.

A conformation seemed to come in the form of a piece of paper, which had been placed in front of Nick. He pawed the paper towards his body, and read it.

 _Dear Nicholas,_

 _If you're wondering if our little deal actually happened, it did. So have fun and get that case solved, unless you wanna stay like that forever!_

 _'Sincerely', Yours truly,_

 _Damien_

 _P.S. Vaccines wont work :)_

The page had the same pentagram from Damien's office, made of wood, pressed into the bottom of the page.

Nick figured that the note had been well enough evidence to say that he'd actually been brought back, and he began to stand up. But something was wrong. When Nick tried to stand on two legs, his body wouldn't let him, like he didn't have enough strength to stand. Instead, it seemed like his body wanted to move on all fours, like a savage animal.

Nick began to say something, perhaps an "oh, fuck" or "What?". Instead, a panicked whimper came out of his muzzle. If he'd been panicking before, he was _really_ panicking now. He crawled up onto all fours, and, to his horror, it felt _right_ , like he was _meant_ to move like that.

Needless to say, _just because it_ _ **felt**_ _right didn't mean it_ _ **was**_ _right_ , to Nick, and the fox's panic had nearly reached it limit at that point.

If you had been watching the fox from a different perspective, it would definitely look odd. A savage fox, trying to stand itself up, trying to say something, with only panicked whimpers and snarls coming out.

 _Very odd._

And in all of his panicking, he also managed to notice that he had apparently lost his opposable thumbs, which to put it simply meant one thing; He looked, moved, acted, and talked- or at least what was left of that, was like a savage animal. Nick understood what this meant; Everyone, at least at their first glance, would be scared shitless of him. This presented a new problem:

He was going to have to, probably, do this by himself.

Without full usage of his hands, without the ability to speak, and while everyone's first reaction to seeing him would be panic.

It was at that point, that Nick realized that Damien was more of an evil demon, than a helpful one. _Of course he'd be evil! He's a demon for fuck's sake!_ The fox groaned audibly and dug his claws into the cold winter dirt.

 _Well you're going to have to start somewhere Nick. You've got to find Judy. And fix yourself._

 _Maybe fix yourself first._

Unfortunately, we don't always get we want, and, to Nicks apparent happiness, when he _actually_ checked his surroundings, he found that he was still in a forest. A forest, to his luck (and/or Damien's personal choice of where to throw him back in), seemingly right next to the abandoned construction site where he recalled dying only hours before.

He padded towards the large building, which was about 7 floors. The buildings were meant to be low rent housing, as part of one of the new mayors plans. Unsurprisingly, it had been a failure due to rising gang violence, making it unsafe to work in the area. The gang violence had eventually been quelled, but the damage was done, and so the buildings were never finished.

As he neared the front entrance, he began to smell a very familiar (and comforting) smell; Judy, a could recognize the smell from miles away. But he could also smell something that worried him just as much as Judy's smell comforted him: Blood. Of course he couldn't tell who's it was, but guessing by the fact there were no more cars in front of the building, as much as he hoped, a thought in the back of his head was telling him it was Judy's blood, and that it wasn't exactly from a papercut.

Nick entered the building, following Judy's scent through the building. _How high did they bring us?_ He climbed up the stairs leading to the higher floors, Judy's scent, and the smell of blood becoming clearer. He had reached the 5th floor when he heard pained breaths, and spotted a blood trail leading down from the 6th floor stairway, and into a large room almost directly across. He quieted his padding, and the breaths became quieter. He moved closer to the empty doorway. At this point, the smell of blood and Judy was definitely telling him that she was in the room. He could hear the sound of a doorknob being shaken, like it was being forced open. He quietly padded through the dark doorway, and was thoroughly relived in what he saw.

Judy was looking at him.

Or at least the doorway.

It made sense, it was getting dark, and since there were no lights in the unfinished building ( _duh!_ ) it made it even hard for Nick to look where he was going. Judy had a scared expression on her face. That confused Nick. _Why would she be afraid of me? I guess she can't see me, but she can still smell me, right?_ He wondered, and kept on wondering, and moving forward until-

"Stay back!" The rabbit said, pointing a ZPD-Issue tranq-guns at him.

He couldn't believe it. Judy was literally pointing at tranq-gun at him, and he hadn't even made any aggressive movements!

He padded closer to her, and to his surprise, Judy pulled the gun down. Confusion began to fill her eyes, which was then replaced with hope. "N-Nick?" She asked, her voice shaking.

 _Yes! Its me, Nick! Your partner!_ Nicks eyes opened wide with happiness and surprise. _Its Nick, your best fri-_ He was cut off again (common occurrence in this event, I guess?) when Judy _again_ raised her gun back into a shooting aim, aiming it at Nick. The hope disappeared and was replaced by fear.

 _You know what? I've got a good idea._

Nick whimpered, and Judy's face changed from scared to a confused He lowered his head, not knowing how much Judy could see. He padded out of the room, and stopped outside of the door. He heard the sound of a gun hitting the floor, and tensed his body. _God, I hope this works._ He sprinted into the room at full tilt. Judy tried to lift her gun, but Nick expected this, and slapped it out of her paws.

Judy shot backwards, wincing in pain, and Nick began to stalk towards her, looking her over. She didn't look good. Her neck looked like it had been choked, and her leg looked absolutely horrible and bloody. The rest of her body barley looked better than the leg. Her uniform was torn, and he could see bruises beginning to form.

He kept on moving towards her, his stalk turning into a less-threatening walk as she shut her eyes and turned her head towards the wall. Nick could smell her fear, and that was the exact opposite of what he wanted to smell. So he was gentle with his next movements. He gently placed his paws on her shoulders, and realized a major flaw in his plan.

In Nick's moment on focusing on getting the gun away, he failed to note one thing; the fact that one of her legs was effectively useless, and that she at least _looked_ too weak to walk out. So he did something that he wouldn't expect himself to do: He put his teeth on the scruff of her neck, and lifted. She wasn't easy to pick up, and he almost struggled to keep her up, but he persevered and got used to holding her as he brought her down the stairs.

He failed to notice when she opened her eyes early on, but he _did_ notice when she began to struggle in his hold. The mixture of her weight and her struggling (which was quite strong for her condition) annoyed him.

 _I'm was trying to bring you downstairs to help you, and you're trying to escape? Really?_

So as you can guess, he was incredibly annoyed when she managed to roll out of his bite and nearly onto a stair. He shoved her down mid-flight and glared at her angrily. Her eyes went wide in fear, and Nick flipped her over and bit on her scruff, harder now.

And as soon as he heard the cry from Judy, his mind seemed to shift itself back into place, and his annoyance disappeared, replaced with worry. He checked Judy's neck to make sure he hadn't bit her neck _too_ hard and cut it. When he picked her up again he made sure not to bite as hard as he'd bitten before.

He felt guilt for biting too hard as he traversed the building, and every time she'd had a pained breath, he'd stop and check her over, but he usually failed to find any new wounds. Unfortunately, Judy had given a lot of pained breaths, which lead to the entire climb down turning from a 5-minute climb to a 15-minute decent.

In the 15 minutes of stop-and-go descending, Nick formulated the final step in his plan.

When Nick and Judy reached what would be the lobby, he padded towards the front door and placed her wall next to the doorway. Why didn't Nick bring her outside? First off, he knew it was getting cold outside, and the sun was nearly down at this point. Secondly, Nick knew there weren't any people living around the buildings. Even with the large amount of houses, he knew most homes were abandoned, especially the ones around him. He figured he could probably carry her to a not-so-abandoned house, or a payphone.

So he had to stop her when she tried to drag herself out of the building, but he knew he couldn't be forceful, so he pulled a move he'd taken out of Judy's book before.

He gently placed his paw on her back. He'd would've liked to rub one of his fingers in a circular motion to _really_ grab her attention, but considering his semi-savage state, he couldn't exactly do that. She turned her head towards him, and he smiled inwardly, but outside he gave Judy the puppy dog look, pursed lips and all. It must have worked, considering the rabbit dragged herself back to the fox.

As the two sat, Nick began to think about _why_ Judy had been acting so different around him. He hadn't attacked her, nor had he showed any actual signs of killing her, but she had seemed to be scared shitless of him, or at least until he'd brought her downstairs. He could understand why she was scared of him at first,

 _I mean, if you saw your dead partner, savage, and right in front of you, you'd be scared,_ he pondered, looking at the rabbit. _but why had she not tried to talk to me as a partner? I guess she'd think I couldn't understand her, but she didn't seem to even think it was me in front of her. How different could I look? She hasn't even said my name once since... No, she probably couldn't even see me._ He sat there for a few minutes, lost in his thoughts, and nearly missed the telltale whine of police siren becoming louder in his ears.

He looked at Judy, uncertain. How could the police have known where they were? The two hadn't brought phones, nor had they told anyone where they were going when the left to station. They still had the looks of uncertainty on their faces when they heard the sirens stop and the sounds of cruiser doors opening and closing. Like earlier, Nick picked Judy by the scruff of her neck again, and began out of the building cautiously, just in case it was a trap.

It wasn't a trap, but the yells from the officers, who he didn't recognize (who eventually turned out to be rookies, surprise, surprise) set him into a minor panic.

"What the hell? What's that fox doing!?"

It made sense, he wasn't that well known in the ZPD. It did confuse him that none of the other officers, especially some that had weren't rookies, recognized him.

"Holy shit, he's savage, look at his eyes!"

Again, it made sense. He'd seen the eyes of savage animals before. They were normally narrow slits, but it did come to him he hadn't actually seen himself, or, in this case, his eyes.

"I thought everyone got a vaccine for that!"

 _Oh shit._ There actually _had_ been a vaccine for Nighthowlers that had been developed after the Nighthowler crisis, and it had been mandatory for all mammals, aside from mice and other very small prey mammals, and considering Nick looked decent, it'd make sense that he would have a vaccination for it. That meant _yet another_ problem; if he was taken to the hospital to get treated, it wouldn't work. And when the doctors found out that he _couldn't_ be treated, he would never get out of the hospital. To put it simply, he couldn't get medical help, and he guessed it wouldn't be very easy to make friends in the state he was in.

"He's biting Officer Hopps!"

Nick looked down in panic. It definitely looked like Judy was being bitten by him. Weirdly enough, it looked like she was opening her eyes, and her body was limp, like she'd been knocked out. Had he don't something to her? She looked fine, aside from the snapped leg and beaten body. _Ok, maybe not that fine_

"Shoot him!"

 _No, no, no,_ He spotted Judy's eyes shoot open in surprise, and he almost beat Judy to open his maw to let her roll out.

"Wait! It's okay, he didn't eat me! He's fine!"

It felt nice to hear Judy's voice fighting for his safety, but the fox knew the argument wouldn't work, and for good reason. He was literally savage, and standing in front of multiple officers, who were mostly rookies.

Nick missed what one of the officers said next, but it must have been something to set off the lot of them, considering that he heard a chorus of safeties being undone. He began to move backwards cautiously.

"Just don't shoot! I'll explain." The rabbit pleaded.

At that point, Nick was backing towards faster and faster, his body tensing up, getting ready to run at full tilt to get away.

"I'm sorry Hopps, he's savage, we'll have to."

 _And that's my cue._ He thought as the Wolf aimed at him. He shot towards Nick, but Nick was faster. He sprinted into the building, searching for an exit leading to the forest. He could hear shouts from outside, and the sound of pawsteps echoing through the empty rooms.

He finally found an exit, and ran. He could hear the yells from behind him, but he kept on running. He could feel the cold Tundra town air nipping at his summer coat, and he kept on running.

* * *

By the time he'd stopped running, the officers were out of site, and he was in an empty part of the forest, by a river. He looked around, and saw what would be the bottom portion of one of the massive air-cooling systems that allowed Tundra Town to be so cold. Nick smiled. _A way to get out._ The fox knew the perpetrator would definitely not be in Tundra Town. He padded towards the river, which had almost frozen over. He was going to get a drink from it, but stopped out of shock when he saw his reflection.

Sitting there was a fox, looking almost exactly like Nick himself, albeit more menacing, and with one defining feature he remembered from Damien:

Cold, crimson red eyes, glowing in the darkness of the night, and lit up by the not far-off lights from the conditioning wall.

 **Alias's note: I'm sorry.**

 **Seriously, I'm sorry I didn't get this chapter out faster. I had time.**

 **apology accepted?**

 **I hope so.**

 **(Seriously though, enjoy this 2800-word chapter)**

 **Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go sleep for 5 days. (School yo)**

 **Anyways, Alias out!**


End file.
